Freedom from Reality: The Diabolical Character of Modern Liberty (Catholic Ideas for a Secular World)

I was very excited about this book before summer and so immediately preordered it. I believe I received it around the 6th of November and read it all the way through finishing today. I really enjoyed the book as it gave me many opportunities for reflection on our society and the roots of its underlying philosophy. Very happy to read at the beginning in note 3 that this book (363 pages and another 95 pages of notes) is only the first in the trilogy in answering the problem of modern Freedom.[Note 3] “We hope to follow up the present book with two connected volumes, which together will form a relatively complete argument: after the present book, we project a genealogical volume that seeks to account for the emergence of the distinctively modern conception of freedom from the complexity of the Christian appropriation of the classical tradition, and then a largely constructive “metaphysics of freedom” that would articulate the various dimensions of an adequate conception of freedom in response to the deficiencies brought to light in the preceding two volumes.”There’s a main thrust throughout the book linking today’s freedom and all of its sub-categories (free market, freedom of the press, technology, choice, autonomy, self-determination, privacy, rights, power to vote, freedom of thought, academic freedom, and freedom of info…all covered in ch5) together, that either make them truly free/symbolical in the proper aspect, or diabolical in the inverted aspect; but I don’t want to give that thrust away. DC Schindler, especially in Part I, provided an enlightening synthesis of many errors behind modern thought which seems to be rooted in a distorted view of what Freedom is. These are errors I’ve known and fought with personally or read about but never really understood how it came to this point. It’s amazing to see how he sees them linked together and all logically fit. Many Aha moments. A great resource for fighting against today’s modernity.Material in Part I on Locke flowed well, allowing me to enter into a structured philosophical argument linking Locke’s complete train of thought. He was also able to tie Locke’s Essay… and Treatise… together to show how they do not conflict but are consistent with his thought. He also doesn’t stop in the history of modernity at Locke, but later, in a section titled Rights in Part II Ch.5, goes back much further briefly discussing William of Ockham.I was pleased that he had the proper understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, in regards to the “common good” which aligns with Aquinas (listen to Russell Hittinger’s Thomistic Institute podcasts), i.e., not a collective sum total of individual goods (plural), but rather from the opposite end as a preexisting good (singular) for the entire genus or species.I did have some issues, and it bothers me to say it:The summary of my issues below are a neglect of Scholasticism and his version of act & potency which he may have corrected in a later chapter. In the end, I don’t think this should stop anyone from reading it.Often quotes Hegel in a favorable context, but the quotes are sound and do not appear to conflict with my understanding of Scholastic thought. He also does the same with many modernists, but doesn’t appear to have modernist leanings in the end. I have no formal education in philosophy, but follow Thomistic philosophy, specifically Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange and Dr. Ed Feser, so makes me nervous that he seemed to favor Hegel.Speaks about act and potency throughout book and I didn’t have a problem until ch.5 pp. 197-200 where he gives, I take it, his Ressourcement Theology (read article by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange titled Nouvelle Theologie) version. He later seems to correct this when he gives Aristotle’s version in ch.8 pp.328-329. The Scholastic principles that I see he conflicts with are, “Potency and act constitute a complete and fundamental division of being and of every order of being.” And even more strongly “Every changeable being is composed of potency and act as of two intrinsic principles of being.” Potency is real, but is “revealed” by act, and limits actuality or form as heat received into an object transforms/actualizes it. However, Schindler, on p.197, states, “the potency is a potency for [emphasizes added to “for”] an actuality, and this actuality defines that potency (while the reverse is not true). Indeed, whatever power potency has, to the extent that the power is at all real, is received from actuality (though this is not to deny that the potency itself [emphasis added to “itself”] is a potent).” This seems to allow that an act can be in potency (which is a power) to itself, which would violate another Scholastic principle.The following few sections in “A Society of Devils” chapter (ch5) are also very difficult to follow. The entire book was difficult (very deep) material but mostly coherent, with this exception.Part of the Nouvelle Theologie (Ressourcement Theology) is the rejection of Scholastic philosophy—which the Church heavily relied on as can be seen in the 1917 Code of Canon law Canon 1366, “Professors shall treat studies in rational theology and philosophy and the instruction of students in these disciplines according to the system, teaching, and principles of the Angelic Doctor and hold to them religiously.”— in favor of going back to the Early Fathers, hence “res-sourcement”. He did often rely on Aquinas, and even quoted Dr. Ed Feser a couple of times. However, he seemed to rely more on Plato and Aristotle, and very often referred to “classical philosophy,” never Scholastic philosophy. In ch5 note 144 he specifically changes terms to “Thomistic Philosophy.” The key that settled it for me is the first chapter of Part III which is supposed to be the solution forward to saving America. He titles this Chapter 6 as “Starting Over and Starting After” with the subtitle “A First Foundation in Plato and Aristotle.” “The Ancient Source of Hope.” He never relies or mentions Scholastic thought which corrected a lot of Aristotle and Plato, but continued to quote Hegel and Heidegger. He even sees an error in the ancient Greek version of freedom rooted in Aristotle where freedom can have an indifference or “spontaneous arbitrariness” (pp.286, 292-293). Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange in vol.II ch. 4 of God: His Essence and His Existence p.223, thoroughly explains how freedom works in the intellect and will using Aquinas’s works.On p.286 Schindler says Greeks (I believe he’s meaning to exclude Aristotle and Plato based on his further discussions of how they defined for us what real freedom is) misunderstood Act & Potency by merely reducing potency to act which Hegel points out prevented Plato & Aristotle “to understand and appreciate that man as such is free.” Fr. Garrigou, in Reality (5.2), after pointing out Suarez also did this by seeking a middle ground between Aquinas and Scotus, states this is in opposition to Aristotle’s notion of real potency as a medium between actuality and nothing, i.e., it is nothing without act which is required to make the potency known. And in 5.1 gives a bullet list of what potency is and is not according to Aquinas and Aristotle: it’s not the essence of the thing to be, not the negation/privation of actuality, not the imperfect form of actuality to be, but is a real capacity to receive a definite determined form. Act is then required to actualize this potency.I was pleased he didn’t seem to take the Nouvelle Theologie definition of truth as adequation realis mentis et vitae “the adequation of intellect and life” but took the proper definition of adequatio rei et intellectus “the adequation of intellect and reality.”

One of the most important and engaging controversies among Catholic thinkers today concerns whether or to what extent the Catholic understanding of reality is compatible with the founding principles of the modern liberal order -- if the word order can still be used in this context. Very well respected Catholics take opposite sides in this debate, and I have friends on both sides of it. But D. C. Schindler has just raised the ante in the debate with a brilliant analysis of the crisis of late-modern liberalism. Those like myself who are not trained in philosophy will be challenged, but the effort to follow Schindler's argument pays rich rewards.

This is the most complete philosophical rejection of the liberal notion of freedom. Schindler, unlike most anti-liberal thinkers, shows how the internal dialectic of liberalism must lead to division and disorder. It is not just what has historically occurred but is the part of the very logical structure of liberal notions of freedom. A must read for anyone who wants to go to the deepest levels reflecting on these questions.

Here Schindler has unearthed the truly diabolical (divisive) character of modern “liberalism” (in the classical political sense), and pointed in the direction of a creative retrieval of a genuinely symbolical (unitive) vision.The diabolical divorces everything, constantly in flight from what is real. The symbolical holds all things together, recognizing the key metaphysical principle: what God has joined together none can put asunder.A masterful treatment. I look forward to the future installments of his planned trilogy.

My husband is devouring this book. Perfect for our time.

This is a thorough and riveting, metaphysical critique of the modern conception of freedom as power. It also offers a fresh interpretation of freedom in Plato and Aristotle by contrast. The book's fullness of content is as generous as the author's concept of freedom: over-generous.

Yet to read the volume in full. It's exposition beautifully crafted. These points:1) Author posits too much harmony between Plato and Aristotle. Does not permit the later to be the corrector of the former that he was. In various ways the world, subsequent to these two, pivots around the question, "How like Plato should we be? Of the two, whose the father, whose the brother?"https://www.amazon.com/Literary-Criticism-Plato-Postmodernism-Alternative/dp/1107026105/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&ref_=oh_aui_i_sh_in_o0_img2) The author sailing across his argument the question (the central thesis) of actuality and potency is the backbone of his tome, and the crucial test put to our (or any) age.3) I would not lay out Plato's Cave and the Garden of Eden as brother *myths* without Aristole (and a Hebrew or two) have his say.4) Our age has bludgeoned Modernity - renounces and mocks its paternity. However much Locke may have fathered us we give it little thought; haven't even suitably framed him for a hanging in the hall of ancestors. What is our age? The shock of leaving Modernity in the dust has not, yet, settled upon us. When it has, gorgeously crafted books such as this will need to be revised.